Hodgson glad Torres found the way back to score

Roy Hodgson believes Fernando Torres is starting to enjoy his football once more following his winner in the 2-1 victory over Blackburn.

The striker found the net for the first time since August 29 to clinch the three points after a Jamie Carragher OG cancelled out Sotirios Kyrgiakos's opener. But it was not just the goal Hodgson was pleased with.

"Fernando played well today, he played an awful lot better," said the boss. "That, in my opinion, was his best performance for the team this season.

"It's very nice - when you've had a good performance and caused as many problems as he did - that he actually put one in the back of the net. He'll be very happy tonight and we'll need him to score many more goals if we're going to get into the position in the table that we think we should be in."

Asked why Torres hasn't been able to find top form so far this term, Hodgson replied: "I don't know. He was down, very down when he came back from the World Cup. People do get a bit down when they're criticised right, left and centre.

"He obviously was affected by the amount of criticism he got during the World Cup. And of course the criticism that has then come to the club and the team, myself and everyone connected with Liverpool at the start of the season when we haven't got the number of points everyone expected us to get.

"Maybe he's just beginning to come out of that and find his joy of playing again - find his energy, his intensity.

"It's something we work on in training but you can't infuse that into a player. You can talk about it, demand it, ask him for it, but he's the one that's got to find it in himself when the match starts. Today he did that very, very well."